The subject matter disclosed herein relates generally to apparatus and methods for diagnostic medical imaging, such as Nuclear Medicine (NM) imaging.
In NM imaging, systems with multiple detectors or detector heads may be used to image a subject, such as to scan a region of interest. For example, the detectors may be positioned adjacent the subject to acquire NM data, which may be used to generate a planar (2D) or a three-dimensional (3D) image of the subject.
NM imaging systems systems may have moving detector heads, such as gamma detectors positioned to focus on a region of interest. For example, a number of gamma detectors may be moved (e.g., rotated) to different angular and/or rotational positions for acquiring image data.
However, such detector heads may have a relatively small field of view along an axial direction, for example. Thus, to image larger portions of the body, or to image organs that do not completely fall within the field of view, it may be necessary to acquire a series of images at different times. However, for dynamic studies, images acquired at different times may not be as clinically useful as desired.
Other nuclear cameras, such as the General Electric Discovery NM 530c (http://www3.gehealthcare.com/en/products/categories/nuclear_medicine/cardiac_cameras/discovery_nm_530c), for example, may be based on multiple pinhole configurations, and may also have a limited axial Field Of View (FOV). For example, a nuclear camera that is optimized for cardiac imaging may have a limited FOV in all 3 dimensions, and may be capable of rapidly acquiring a 3D image of the limited-sized FOV. It may be noted that a multi-pinhole based camera may not require motion (e.g., rotation) of a gantry or support structure, and/or of detector units relative to each other, to acquire a single-photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) image. However, some of these cameras may perform a limited motion during SPECT acquisition to acquire data from more view-points with respect to the target tissue.